Reader's Paradise discussion

what do you think about it

I absolutely love this book. Howard Roark is amazing. Ayn Rand writes her characters so well, you are bound to create an association with them emotionally. I read it ten years ago, guess I need to re-visit the memories!

did you read Atlas Shrugged...
you must read this one....do read...please read....ohhh have no words to exagerate but only two words...Read it...do read heh

i find myself struggling to become like howard roark....being like something or someone is not being one...i guess i need to find my dominique to become howard hehe

Ayn Rand is not an easy author to read. When we talk about her, it is always discussing either Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead. These two books put her at the pinnacle of her basic philosophy that selfishness was the only way of achievement. I remember discussing her with my friends and we often ourselves quoting from her two books. Since it was something new at the height of the cold war era, Europe still struggling after WWII and America at its height standing up for capitalism, she found a huge following particularly among the young and she still does. However, to understand her better, it might be better for one to read some of her lesser known works, 'We the Living', 'The Night of January 16th', 'Anthem', 'Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal', 'The New Left: The Anti-industrial Revolution'

Pali Reen|17077144]

you don't like her do you???

When I read this book, I thought it was really good. I thought Ayn Rand had succesfully proved her philosophy to me. This leads me to believe that Ayn Rand is a good author. She wrote in a manner which was able to convince many readers, which I think was her goal. However, her philosophy , in my opinion is where the flaw lies. It simply wouldn't work in the real world.

Abhishek wrote: "you don't like her do you???"
It is not a question of like and dislike. Everything has its place and space in this world, only we know it by different words in different times and age. However, when someone pushes an idea to an extreme, I tend to reject it as something that will not hold true in time. Again, you have got to be Ayn Rand with her beliefs to accept her in toto and you are not. Maybe it worked for her but I knew that her ideals could never work for me beyond a point. I was more influenced by her works Anthem in which she talks about the discovery of yourself and her play The Night of January 16th(very few people know about her plays) for its unusual ending. More than fifties years after her books were written, we have even rejected communism and the Karl Marx theories. If there is one message I derived from her books apart from being well written is that extremes never work. Even Chandragupt Maurya had to banish his mentor Chanakya from his court in the end.